New rules for Oz Lotto as $5m up for grabs

Just a day before the $5 million prize was put on offer, officials revealed the lottery was getting a major shake-up.

The same day that Oz Lotto is offering up a $5 million prize, it has also switched up the rules.

Now, it will be easier to win money in lottery draws – but it will be harder to nab a division one prize.

A representative from The Lott, Matt Hart, recently revealed that the lottery company had been thinking about shaking things up for some time and that they had finally taken the leap.

Now, they’ve changed the number of balls in the draw which will increase the likelihood of winning but reduce a punter’s chances of scoring bigger prizes.

It comes as the Tuesday night lottery has $5 million on the line.

There’s $5 million up for grabs tonight.

“Customers have told us they’re looking for bigger prizes and more winners,” Mr Hart told A Current Affair on Monday night.

“There‘s going to be two additional balls in the barrel.

“So currently, there are 45 and that will move to 47. The other key change is that there’s going to be an additional supplementary number drawn.”

Lottery punters have a one-in-45,379,620 chance of scoring the division one prize, which starts at a minimum of $2 million.

But with the new balls in the barrel, those chances will go down to one-in-62,891,499.

However, chances of winning the smaller prizes will go up, prompting Oz Lotto to increase the price of a ticket by 10c to recoup their losses and fund the extra prizes.

The changes come into effect from May 17.

Lottery games are changing from May.

So far this year, four entries have scored a division one prize in Oz Lotto, collectively pocketing more than $71 million. Two of these wins were from Queensland, one was from Western Australia and one was from New South Wales

In 2021, there were 18 Oz Lotto division one winning entries that took home more than $279 million in prize money.

The last time somebody snapped up the division one prize during the Tuesday night draw was two weeks ago, on March 8.

The country NSW woman, from Nabiac, won a whopping $11,065,048.79 a fortnight ago.